Katherine Janus Kahn A&M1

In the three decades that I have been maintaining a studio and making serious art, I have found myself doing many different things in many different media. But as my studios have become smaller, I find that space is a powerful informer of the things artists make.

Natural processes of development and changes in interests (themes) are the other main vehicles of change. I am, like the proverbial caterpillar/butterfly, transforming once again.

I will be working on smaller paintings, but still on modular drawings. I have always been a figurative artist; I will continue with the figure. I am sometimes driven by “global politics”. If and when I need to respond to that, I will do so.

Several years ago, I started confronting the aging process. For my 65th birthday, I started working on a series of 65 self-portraits. I suspect that work will be at least part of my continuing focus.

I am showing four very different images. The first two I deem political: “Cain and Abel: The Assassination of Rabin”, from 1996, and an installation in response to 2001 called “When Mothers are Missiles and Babies are Bombs”. The others are later portraits: a self-portrait called: “Katherine the Great” and a very recent drawing called “Now/Then”.

If you don’t see me working in the studio five days a week, it will be because of my other “art”, illustrating children’s books, which I do in a home studio. With over 50 published books, and two presently in the works, there are sometimes deadlines that keep me focused there.

Artists & Makers Studios is dedicated to providing a supportive and vibrant environment for artists to realize their creative goals – through studio practice, collaboration, education, opportunities, networking and connecting with the community beyond our doors.